Judge orders mental exam for actress in ricin-letters case

TEXARKANA, Texas - A federal judge ordered a psychiatric evaluation Thursday for a small-time actress from east Texas accused of sending ricin-laced letters to President Barack Obama, NewYork City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and a gun-control advocate.

Shannon Guess Richardson, 35, was ordered by U.S. Magistrate Judge Caroline Craven to undergo an examination by medical staff of the Federal Bureau of Prisonswithin 30 days to determine whether she is competent to assist in her defense.

“The court is of the opinion that she may be suffering from a mental disorder or defect,” Craven said as she issued her order.

Wrists bound and dressedin an orange jail jumpsuit, Richardson did not speak during the three-minute afternoon hearing on the Texas side of the federal building in Texarkana, which straddles the Arkansas-Texas state line.

In response to the judge’s order, Richardson only nodded that she understood before she was taken back into the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.

The judge’s order came in response to a motion filed early Thursday by Richardson’s attorney, Tonda Curry, thatexpressed concerns about her client’s mental competency. The motion wasn’t opposed by federal prosecutors.

In an interview after the hearing, Curry said her client has had panic attacks, severe anxiety and other signs that raised concerns about about her mental health.

“She has never even seen the inside of a jail before, and it is a very harrowing experience when you go through that when you’re older and when you’re pregnant,” Curry said of her client.

Richardson, who has five children and is expecting another child in the fall, has been jailed in Titus County, Texas, since her arrest June 7.

Richardson is best known for small roles on television shows The Vampire Diaries and The Walking Dead, where she played a zombie. She also portrayed a student in the film The Blind Side, according to her resume posted on IMDb, a movie and television database website.

Richardson now will be transferred to a medical facility of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ choosing, though Curry said most federal defendants in east Texas are sent to facilities in Fort Worth or Springfield, Mo., for mental evaluations.

Curry said Richardson could stay longer than 30 days at the facility if staff there decides she needs further examination.

In the meantime, federal prosecutors are expected to present evidence to a grand jury seeking a formal indictment of Richardson in the case.

Richardson hasn’t been charged with any crimes related to making or possessing ricin but could be if a grand jury determines that evidence supports those charges.

Currently, she is being held on a federal criminal complaint charging her with mailing a threatening communication and accusing her of sending three threatening, ricin-laced letters through the mail May 20.

The complaint also accuses her of framing her husband, Nathaniel Richardson, as the letters’ sender. He has not been charged in the case.

According to the complaint, the letters expressed anger at Bloomberg and the president, and also promised to shoot anyone seeking to take guns from the writer’s home.

The letters were addressed to the president, Bloomberg and Mark Glaze, the director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a gun-control advocacy group of which Bloomberg is co-chairman.

The letters were sent in envelopes along with substances that later tested positive for ricin, a toxin derived from castor beans that can be fatal if inhaled, ingested or otherwise introduced into a person’s body. The toxin has no known antidote.

In the days after the letters were opened, federal agents traced the letters back to a mailing facility in Shreveport in late May, and later back to east Texas near New Boston, where Richardson lives. New Boston is about 25 miles westof Texarkana on Interstate 30.

While investigators were looking into the letters’ paths and after the ricin-laced letters were reported on by national media, Richardson came forward May 30, telling federal agents that she suspected her husband had sent the letters.

Richardson also turned over a book of stamps to the FBI during the meeting, which took place in Shreveport. Forensic tests later matched the stamp book to all three letters.

Federal agents later interviewed Nathaniel Richardson at the Red River Army Depot in Texarkana, Texas, where he works.

Nathaniel Richardson denied sending the letters and told investigators that he believed his wife had sent them and was trying to blame him because she wanted to end their marriage.

Investigators also searched his car, where they found castor beans, and later searched the couple’s home, where they found ingredients they said could be used to make ricin.

During a May 31 interview, a polygraph examination indicated Shannon Richardson was being deceptive, and when investigators confronted her about the test results, she changed her story, federal agents wrote in court papers.

She maintained her husband had sent the letters but said she had planted ricin powder and castor beans to ensure his arrest.

Investigators then searched the couple’s home again. During that search, they found a box containing castor beans, syringes and a Tupperware container of a liquid suspected of being involved in ricin production. Samples taken from the home later tested positive for ricin, agents wrote in the affidavit supporting the criminal complaint.

Also among the evidence agents found were computer files - including one labeled “muslimbastard.docx” that contained the text of the letter to the president. That file and another listing the mailing addresses on the threatening letters were accessed and printed while Nathaniel Richardson was at work May 20, the affidavit said.

When investigators confronted Shannon Richardson with the files and other evidence, she admitted to receiving syringes and other ingredients used to make ricin in the mail, according to the criminal complaint.

She also admitted to printing the mailing labels for the three letters and sending the letters “knowing that they contained ricin,” according to the complaint, though investigators noted she maintained she had done so at her husband’s direction.

If convicted, Shannon Richardson, who also goes by the names Shannon Rogers and Shannon Guess, could face up to 10 years in the federal prison system, which doesn’t have parole.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 06/21/2013

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